The air around us may be carrying vastly more microscopic plastic than scientists ever realized.
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Black Cat Behind SEO Poisoning Malware Campaign Targeting Popular Software Searches
The malware establishes contact with a hard-coded remote server (“sbido[.]com:2869”), allowing it to steal web browser data, log keystrokes, extract clipboard contents, and other valuable information from the compromised host.
CNCERT/CC and ThreatBook noted that the Black Cat cybercrime syndicate has compromised about 277,800 hosts across China between December 7 and 20, 2025, with the highest daily number of compromised machines within the country scaling a high of 62,167.
To mitigate the risk, users are advised to refrain from clicking on links from unknown sources and stick to trusted sources for downloading software.
New GoBruteforcer attack wave targets crypto, blockchain projects
A new wave of GoBruteforcer botnet malware attacks is targeting databases of cryptocurrency and blockchain projects on exposed servers believed to be configured using AI-generated examples.
GoBrutforcer is also known as GoBrut. It is a Golang-based botnet that typically targets exposed FTP, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and phpMyAdmin services.
The malware often relies on compromised Linux servers to scan random public IPs and carry out brute-force login attacks.
Critical jsPDF flaw lets hackers steal secrets via generated PDFs
The jsPDF library for generating PDF documents in JavaScript applications is vulnerable to a critical vulnerability that allows an attacker to steal sensitive data from the local filesystem by including it in generated files.
The flaw is a local file inclusion and path traversal that allows passing unsanitized paths to the file loading mechanism (loadFile) in jsPDF versions before 4.0. It is tracked as CVE-2025–68428 and received a severity score of 9.2.
The jsPDF library is a widely adopted package with more than 3.5 million weekly downloads in the npm registry.
Potential Anti-Cancer Fungal Compound Finally Synthesized After 55 Years
The fungal compound verticillin A, discovered more than 50 years ago, has long been regarded for its potential cancer-fighting capabilities. S cientists have now managed to artificially synthesize the compound for the first time, meaning they can study it in more detail and potentially develop new cancer treatments.
Being able to produce verticillin A on demand in the lab is a major step forward. In nature, it’s found only in small amounts in a microscopic fungus and is very difficult to extract.
Before now, the complex chemical structure and inherent instability of verticillin A made it tricky to synthesize, but researchers from MIT and Harvard Medical School have overcome both problems.
Astronomers Witness ‘Missing Link’ in Planet Formation
“What’s so exciting is that we’re seeing a preview of what will become a very normal planetary system,” said Dr. John Livingston.
How are the most common types of planets made? This is what a recent study published in Nature hopes to address as a team of scientists investigated the intricate processes responsible for the most common types of exoplanets—super-Earths and sub-Neptunes—to form and evolve. This study has the potential to help scientists better understand not only planetary formation and evolution, but for solar systems, as our solar system doesn’t have super-Earths or sub-Neptunes.
For the study, the researchers conducted a multi-year examination of the V1298 Tau system, which is an approximately 20-million-year-old system located about 350 light-years from Earth and hosts four growing exoplanets orbiting in a tight formation, and each being between 5 to 10 Earth radii. Given the young age of the system, as our solar system is about 4.5 billion-years-old, the goal of the study was to predict the sizes of the four planets when they stop evolving.
In the end, the researchers ascertained that while the four young planets are between 5–10 Earth radii right now, they will end up being between 1–4.5 Earth radii when they are done forming. They note this is due to the rapid cooling they underwent after initial formation due to their small masses and large radii, resulting in their shrinking while losing their atmospheres, with one of the researchers calling this the “missing link” in understanding the formation of super-Earth and sub-Neptunes, which are the most common types of exoplanets.
